Foreign Influence
Aurora General Advertiser, January 23, 1799
The public attention has been much employed for some time, on the danger of
foreign influence, and of divisions between the government and the people.
The jealousy which has been awakened on these subjects, has however, been
exclusively directed towards one foreign nation. To be honorable to our
character, and adequate to our safety, it ought to be pointed to every
quarter where danger lurks, and most awake to that, from which danger is
most to be feared.
The two important questions that offer themselves to a mind in every respect
American, are; first, whether there be greater danger of the government
being separated from the people, by its own ambition, and by foreign
intrigues; or of the people being separated from the government, by such
intrigues and by its proneness to anarchy and sedition: Secondly, from what
foreign quarter the greatest danger of influence is to be apprehended?
The first question being rendered peculiarly delicate by known causes, is
left for hands better qualified to manage it: excepting, indeed, so far as
light may be thrown on it from an examination of the second.
On this question I have bestowed much thought, and perhaps, with as much
impartiality as is felt by those who profess the most of it. The conclusion
with me, is, that Great Britain, above all other nations, ought to be
dreaded and watched, as most likely to gain an undue and pernicious
ascendency in our country.
I think so, because her motives are stronger, and her means, greater.
HER MOTIVES.
1. The pride of regaining by address — the benefits she formerly held by
authority. That she is making at this crisis, every effort for the purpose,
is seen by every eye that is not wilfully shut to facts.
2. Her spirit, and system of monopoly, must make her particularly dread the
policy and prosperity of the United States, in the three great articles of
which she is most jealous — to wit, manufactures, commerce, navigation.
The United States are the greatest and best market for her manufactures. To
keep out those of other nations, and to keep down those of our own, is the
grand object to which her efforts have ever been directed. It is well
understood, that one of our manufactures has been strangled in its birth, by
a dextrous operation from that quarter.
On the subject of commerce, she has the same feelings, the same interest,
and the same system. To be our merchant as well as manufacturer, is the game
she will most certainly play, in time to come as in time past, however
differently her cards may be shuffled. The eastern states ought to know this
better than any other part of the continent. It was known and felt both, at
Boston, soon after the close of the war. The sentinels that proclaimed the
alarm, then, where are they now?
With respect to navigation, all the world knows, the greater part of it by
severe experience, that the most jealous lover never guarded an inconstant
mistress with a more watchful eye. The United States, in their materials for
ship building, and their bulky articles for transportation, possess
resources more important to her, if she can force or influence us out of
them, and presenting a more formidable rivalship to her, if she cannot, than
any other nation whatever. Hence her rigid and compulsive monopoly, whilst
we were colonies. Hence the obstinacy of her exertions, during the
revolutionary war, this monopoly to retain. Hence her vigilance and
activity, to regain it by her parliamentary regulations, and orders of
council, before we had a general government, that could counteract them.
Hence her address in seizing the moment of our humiliation, which gave her
the British treaty. Hence the impatient and rigorous use made of that treaty
in her "countervailing act," which cuts the throat of the American
navigation, and transfuses the vital blood of it into her own.
3. But the most powerful, perhaps, of all her motives, is her hatred and
fear of the republican example of our governments. The others are motives of
national interest only; this is enlivened by the strong feeling, also, of a
governmental and personal interest. This feeling shewed itself in many
features of the revolutionary war. It shewed itself in the indignant
treatment of the first minister from the United States, and in the distance
and dislike displayed for a long period thereafter: It shewed itself by the
strongest marks, in the undisguised wishes and hopes, that our union would
be speedily dissolved, that our popular governments would tumble into
anarchy and convulsions; and that the general wreck, would exhibit a
spectacle of misery and horror, that would forever disgrace the republican
principle, and add new braces to the monarchial fabric. The same acute and
predominant feeling has shewed itself in an increased aversion to the
smallest improvement of the British government in its representative branch;
and has displayed itself, with all its force, in its instant alarm at the
propagation of republican principles into France, and the unparalleled rage
and inveteracy of the war pursued against them; a war in which every
calculation of national advantage was sacrificed to the monarchial policy
and passions of the government.
Whilst the abhorrence of the British government to republicanism in Europe
is thus implacable, it must be proportionably so to the danger of the
example elsewhere. If she has changed her course therefore towards this
country, it is not that she has changed her sentiments, or is better
reconciled to our political principles and institutions; but that she now
hopes to attain her ends better in another way. The truth is, Great Britain,
as a monarchy, containing a republican ingredient, of which (at all times,
but in the present state of the world more particularly) the danger of a
fermentation & expansion, fills her with distressing apprehensions, must
view with a malignant eye the United States, as the real source of the
present revolutionary state of the world, and as an example of republicanism
more likely than any other, for very obvious reasons, to convey its
contagion to her. In a word, the British Monarchy must, as it assuredly
does, hate the American Republic; and this hatred must be in proportion to
its fear; and this fear must be in proportion to the practical success of
the Republican theory. It will consequently spare no pains to defeat this
success, by drawing our Republic into foreign wars, by dividing the people
among themselves, by separating the government from the people, by
establishing a faction of its own in the country, by magnifying the
importance of characters among us known to think more highly of the British
government, than of their own, or of such as are ready to play any part that
it may dictate to them; with a systematic view, on one hand of disgracing
the Republican principle, and on the other, of swelling and shaping our
government towards the pattern of its own.
This pursuit of the British government, is highly criminal, because at
variance with right principles, yet it is so congenial with its situation
and its interest, that it excites less indignation than the conduct of those
who clandestinely favor the plan, or wilfully shut their own eyes, and
endeavour to shut the eyes of others to it. For it is not possible that a
government in which a few are cloathed with prerogatives and dignities
almost divine, whilst many are suppressed to a condition scarcely human; and
where a civil list, a military, and naval establishment, and a hierarchy
(passing by the frightful mass of debts incurred by unnecessary wars) load
the people with an annual burden of more than a hundred million of dollars —
and where, besides, corruption is confessedly the vital principle that
pervades the whole system; it is not possible, that such a government can
see another, founded on the just rights of mankind, virtuously administered,
at the small expence of a few hundred thousand dollars, and enjoying peace,
order, tranquillity, and happiness without comparisons and reflections,
leading to the idea that the example of the latter government must be
dangerous to the former, if the influence of the former cannot in some way
destroy the force of the example.
The means of this influence are as obvious as the motives.
The British government has a more ready and ample command of money than any
other government in the world.
Being an absolute monarchy in its executive department, it can distribute
its money for secret services with every advantage of safety and success.
It is the long and systematic practice of effectuating its purposes both at
home and abroad by means of money. The sum for secret services has been
vastly augmented of late years. Great Britain expends more money annually,
under that head, than is appropriated to support the government of the
United States.
A British Ambassador and his suite, having the peculiar advantage of the
same language, the same usages & the same manners, with our citizens, can
more easily than any other foreigners, associate intimately and extensively
with them, can write with less danger of detection, for our newspapers, and
can intrigue, with less difficulty, with our government, if unhappily any
department, should ever become susceptible of it. Nor is it to be
overlooked, that there is not a state or district in the union, that does
not present to them countrymen ready to second their views, if not execute
their instructions.
There are among us not less than fifty or sixty thousand native subjects of
the British Empire. Striking out the very respectable proportion of them who
are Americans not only in allegiance, but in principles and attachment, the
number remaining who are truly British in one or all their characteristics,
constitutes a fund of foreign influence, that merits very serious attention,
in the present estimate. The influence from this class of persons is the
greater, as they are in no small degree scattered over the whole face of the
country, and mingled (in some parts of America more than in others) in
almost every neighbourhood, some of them possessed of wealth, others of
friendly dispositions, and engaging manners; but all not the less foreigners
in their principles and affections, and using all the influence of their
conciliating qualities on the side of their native country, in every
question which puts her interests in competition with ours. The universal
and uniform ardour of this description of persons for war, in preference to
peace with France, stands for a thousand proofs of the fact, that they are
Britons, not Americans in their hearts.
In elections, the means of British influence are often no less visible,
mixing among the people without any badge of their alienism in their
language, dress, or appearance; British foreigners are frequently among the
busiest canvassers, and most successful retailers of tickets.
In other meetings of the people, the same circumstances open the way for the
same influence. How many British subjects, or natives of British principles,
were there among the petitioners of this city in favor of the British
Treaty? How many in the Chamber of Commerce of New-York? How many indeed
every where among the eager partizans of that ill-omened measure?
This leads us to the great flood-gate of British influence British Commerce.
The capital in the American trade amounts to thirty or forty millions of
dollars. Three fourths of this is British capital; of this proportion three
fourths is in British hands. The residue in the hands of Americans, has more
effect in Anglicizing them, than in Americanizing the influence it gives.
Individual exceptions are admitted and might be named. But it is of equal
certainty that the American merchants generally who value on British capital
and credit, are those who feel most powerfully the capitulating influence.
More than one volume would be necessary to trace in its details this species
of British influence. The copious fountain is in Britain, principally in
London. Every shipment, every consignment, every commission, is a channel in
which a portion of it flows. It may be said to make a part of every cargo.
Our Sea-port towns are the reservoirs into which it is collected. From
these, issue a thousand streams to the inland towns, and country stores:
which, in aid of the influence inherent in British trade and British credit,
not unfrequently receive from the political zeal of the importing merchants,
a stock of British ideas and sentiments proper to be retailed to the people.
Thus it is, that our country is penetrated to its remotest corners with a
foreign poison vitiating the American sentiment, recolonizing the American
character, and duping us into the politics of a foreign nation. And thus it
is, that the more the injuries and insults of Britain thicken upon us, the
greater the apathy and silence respecting them. Her arbitrary edicts against
our neutral rights; her daring perseverance in impressing our seamen, (even
from our public armed ships) by which she levies on us a tribute of men, and
equally tramples on our national independence and our neutrality; the
intrigues of her ambassador to draw us into a war with a friendly power, at
the risk perhaps of a part of our union; the establishment under the eyes of
our government of a foreign newspaper, conducted by a British subject,
avowing his allegiance to his King, glorying in his foreign attachments and
monarchical principles, and villifying with the most unparalleled audacity,
the revolution which obtained our Independence, and the republican
principles which are the basis of our constitution: not to repeat the deadly
blow which she has levelled at our navigation; why has so little been heard
on all these topics? Because a spell has in this case been laid on the
trumpet, which has blown unceasing alarms against the injuries and insults
offered us from another foreign quarter.
Money in all its shapes is influence; our monied institutions consequently
form another great engine of British influence. Our Bank is a powerful one.
Their capital belongs in great part to Britons, or to proprietors interested
in British connections. The proprietors chuse the Directors. The Directors
dispense the credits and favours of the Banks. Every dependant on these
therefore is a kind of vassal, owing homage to his pecuniary superiors, on
pain of bankruptcy and ruin. Say ye citizens of Philadelphia, have ye not
all felt or seen this influence, whenever Bank-Directors have been
canvassers for votes or subscriptions? and has this influence ever been
exerted but on the side espoused by the agents of Britain in this country?
As a vehicle of influence, the press, though the last to be named, must be
allowed all its importance. How deplorable that this guardian of public
rights, this organ of necessary truths, should be tainted with partiality at
all. How bitter the reflection, that it should be subject to a foreign
taint. So however is the fact. It cannot be denied. It hardly needs to be
explained. The inland papers it is well known copy from the city papers;
this city more particularly, as the centre of politics and news. The city
papers are supported by advertisements. The advertisements for the most
part, relate to articles of trade, and are furnished by merchants and
traders. In this manner British influence steals into our newspapers, and
circulates under their passport. Every printer, whether an exception to the
remark or not, knows the fact to be as here stated. There are presses whose
original independence, subsequent apostacies, occcasional conversions,
speedy relapses, and final prostration to advertising customers, point them
out as conspicuous examples.
To conclude: Great Britain feels every motive that a foreign power can feel
to pinch our growth, and undermine our government; and enjoys greater means
of influence for these purposes than ever were possessed by one nation
towards another. On Great Britain then our eye at least will be constantly
fixt by every real
ENEMY TO FOREIGN INFLUENCE.